Black Widow: Widows Bite
by tateria
Summary: Black Widow, the movie. When a high profile U.S. Senator is assassinated, all eyes turn towards the still fugitive Black Widow. Trying to clear her name and uncover who is behind the attack, she finds instead that her past can never be forgotten as old adversaries and new threats emerge. Set post Civil War.
1. Assassination

-1-

"You know Steve," Natasha Romonov purred as she answered the ringing phone, "there have to be other people you feel compelled to check up on every day." She could almost hear the smile on the super solider as well she could hear his measured breathing as he completed his morning run. Nat almost regretted giving him her number, because now she became his daily running companion. For someone who had preferred, and to be honest conditioned, to be alone the past few years had thawed that feeling down. Her time, first with Barton and his family, and then with the Avengers before ...before... everything happened, had been the first time she could clearly remember being in a family. A messed up, highly dysfunctional family, but a family all the same.

The time difference between Wakanada and her New York safe house made it such that while Steve is up too early running, Natalie was just completing her light lunch.

"Yeah, but most of them are here, where you should be." The light push again was ignored by Natalie, which seemed to come at least once a week. "Besides," the super soldier continued, "I don't think Tony is taking my calls yet." While his voice was light and humorous, the pain was still there in his speech. The months following ... the disaster, was the best way Natalie could think to describe what had happened to the Avengers, had been hard on many of the so called "Team Cap", who were now holed up in Wakanada with Steve.

Tony Stark spent most of his time now supporting the remaining Avengers who had signed the Accords, and helping the newly re-established SHIELD, although Natalie felt that was more to make sure he knew what the reborn agency was up to than for political reasons. She wasn't for certain what all had gone down between Stark and Ross, but Tony was definitely not in a good place with the Secretary, although it was not being played out in the press, where both presented a muted but solid front.

"Yeah, well I won't be looking for any gifts under the tree from Santa Stark this year, either," Natalie smirked as she replied to Steve, who laughed as he continued to jog.

-2-

Senator Eldon Smith walked quickly down the hall, his aides handing him briefs and papers as the trailed behind. The senator was talking on the phone animatedly, while trying to keep track of the materials he was being handed to him.

"No, no no no. You listen to me, Secretary Ross. I think we've seen all to well what havoc these programs have wrought over the last few years. I don't care how vital you think they might be, we don't need more of these people running around, we already have lost any sense of control over them, thanks in no small part to you!" The senator ended the call with a forceful, if uselessly dramatic, poke at the phone he held.

"I don't care how many times he calls, I don't want to talk to that man the rest of the week," Senator Smith says as he hands the phone to the nearest aide, a tall brunette. "For that matter ... " his voice trails off as the senator watches his aide and the phone he had just passed off along with the remaining papers in her hands goes flying away from him, a flash of bright red hair and black tactical suit behind her the only clue his spinning mind had as to what had happened. The aide landed with a sickening crunch against the closest wall, the body sliding down at an unnatural angle as her head laid in such a position that it was obvious that her neck had snapped in contact with the wall.

The Capitol security guards sprang to action as his remaining two aides grabbed the Senator, trying to get him away and to safety. The three guards ran at the small woman, her hair spinning in the bright lights of the hallway as she moved quickly, breaking the arm of the closest guard, then spinning around and using her momentum to pull his body into the second guard, knocking them both over. The third guard slowed down and reached for his sidearm, but was too late as the dark clad woman had already drawn hers, the hall echoing with the muzzled sound of her weapon firing, the third guard dropping to the ground, blood gushing from the neck and shoulder wounds he had taken the shots. The bright red blood quickly made a wide pool around his head, already a ghostly grey as the blood loss slowed.

Getting up quickly, the second security guard moved to stop the woman, but she was already moving towards him. With quick succession, she snapped the neck of the second guard while he was still on his knees, and then used the pistol in his hand to shoot the first guard in the head. Both men flopped to the floor as the woman turned around and stalked towards the remaining people in the hall, the Senator and his aides, cowering between a column and the adjoining wall.

Smoothly and quietly, the woman raised her weapon at the senator, one would think calmly if they could see her face; however the attackers face was hidden behind a face mask that obscured her face, leaving only the neck and hair exposed. Not that it was needed, the Senator thought as the bullet launched towards him.

Anyone could tell from the curve of the suit and the way she had killed those men, that the redhead could only be one person: the Black Widow.

-3-

Steve had finished his run and was getting done telling Natalie about the recent news regarding Sam's attempt to pick up ladies in Wakanada as he entered the common room of the communal house the hiding Avengers had been given. He slowed his talking as he watched the news program that had been left on, his attention distracted as he watched Natalie on his TV, and then realizing it was a setting he had not seen her at before. Finally seeing the headline "Black Widow Kills US Senator", the blood drained from his face.

"Nat, turn on the TV," he said after she had said his name twice, snapping him back into the phone call.

The silence on the phone was negated by the audio from the TV as Steve turned up the volume. The video played again from the security cameras as the woman on the screen, ("could it be Nat?", Steve wondered) quickly moved with the usual grace and lethal efficiency of the Black Widow to kill the six victims before moving off screen. News reports were saying that the Capital grounds, as well as much of Washington D.C. And surrounding areas were on lockdown as the dragnet began for the assassin.

"Nat?" Steven said into the phone while watching the news, "are you seeing this?" His question got no reply, which he was only slightly surprised by. "Nat?" He asked again, this time pulling the phone away from his head and seeing that the call had already ended.

Watching the news, Steven could only hope his friend wasn't going to do anything rash, even though he knew all too well he wouldn't be able to not do something if it was him. Raising his phone again, he made another phone call.

"Hey, it's me. I need a flight."


	2. Innocent People

-1-

Like any high profile investigation, there was multiple agencies situated at the Capitol building, and like so many of these multi-agency situations, there was a certain level of chaos. That chaos is what Natasha Romanov was expecting, and used to slip into the crime scene cordon. Her now infamous red hair was tucked securely away under a brunette pixie cut wig and a FBI hat, which matched the windbreaker she wore of the professional, if still manuevable, pant suit. As a spy, she had been drilled how to disappear in a crowd almost as early and often as she was trained to kill.

She could hear Madam Olga's voice clearly, one of the few clear memories she had of the Red Room, 'Again, Natalia! You were sloppy!' Madam Olga would drill this drive for perfection into her ever dwindling class of girls until they were more than perfect.

Shaking the memory away for now, Natasha effortlessly slipped through the gaggle of rushing agents from the FBI, CIA, Capitol Police officers, and (she mused with some irony) several SHIELD agents. Fortunately they were all new hires, so they would never have met her in person, and would be relying on photos to identify the wanted Black Widow.

After several minutes of circuitous movement, Natasha finally reached the main bank of computers that had been set up. On the center screen was a looping replay of several edits views of the attack, playing in grainy black and white. The moves were perfect, Natalie thought, and reminiscent of her own. If she hadn't been the one accused, she might have thought it was her as well. Except, her trained eyes noted, this woman was taller than Natasha was, by at least four inches, her leg takedown of the first aide was proof of that alone. Natasha knew she would have had to lever up off the ground to make that move, where the woman in the video had pivoted with her foot set on the shiny tile of the hallway.

Plugging in her USB drive, the software on it preprogrammed to duplicate all the data to Natasha's personal system via the cellular communication device embedded within, she calmly began to seek an exit before anyone actually tried to put the fake agent to work, or worse, someone she knew recognized her.

Natasha Romonov was many things, and superstitious was most definitely not one of them, however the feeling she had managed to jinx herself with that last thought was painfully obvious to her as she came around a corner and locked eyes with the man at the end of the hallway between her and the exit. She could deal with most problems with ease, and most men were easily intimidated by her. Most men, that is, except Tony Stark. Almost unconsciously, she cursed in her mother tongue as the insufferable smirk on Tony's face almost imperceptibly grew as she walked towards him.

Thankfully, he was talking to multiple agents while watching a holo display from his Stark Phone of the attack, so everyone else was not looking at the billionaire for once.

"Sir," a female robotic voice spoke from the glowing phone, "according to my analysis, there is only a 33.2% chance of the assailant being Natasha Romanov." Still looking at her she passed him, Tony thanked FRIDAY for her analysis, and then had the five men surrounding him quickly begin to shout at the device and Tony, because the video was obviously proof alone.

Taking a turn at the end of the hallway, Natasha entered the stairs and began to climb upwards. Getting onto the grounds had been easy, but now she needed to disappear before Tony did something ... well, Tony-like. Ascending the stairs as quickly as her cover (and the accompanying heeled shoes) would allow, she exited onto the roof of the wing of the Capitol, heading to the far side away from the reporters and guards, and back to where she had made her initial entry.

The remaining exit, down the side of the building and the quick faux-sentry walk took another ten minutes, but since most police agencies look for panic and quick escapes, her slow exit was a needed cover. Ditching the windbreaker and hat, she affixed the lapel pin she had pick pocketed from an congressman she had passed on her way in, and continued down the Mall. It was a brisk night, not quite as cold as her homeland, but with the random memory of Madam Olga in her mind, she couldn't help but think back to those memories.

-2-

 **Russia, 1991**

The petite red headed child shivered in the cold air of the foyer of the older stone mansion, the small fire across the room doing little to warm the room she had been left alone in several minutes ago. The howling wind outside was hissing through the poorly maintained windows, making the room that much colder. Pulling her sweater tighter on her small frame, the young girl seemed all the smaller as a large muscular man entered the door on the left of the small fireplace.

"Ah! You are Natalia Romonaova, yes?" The man spoke with a stiff military accent, which matched his uniform, the medals and other adornments on his uniform glinting in the poor light of the room. At this, the small girl shrunk back, and stared at the floor even harder, fear and sadness radiating from her. "Well?" The man spoke, this time louder, "IS that your name, girl?"

A small timid set of nods was her only reply, her face still looking down, and so did not see the man's beefy hand as he violently backhanded her across her head. Her small body slammed to the floor, and she held her head in her arms as she peeked up to look for another blow, one which was not coming.

The man squatted by the cowering girl, her eyes glassy in the light of the fire as they burned with unshed tears. "Here, you WILL speak when spoken to, girl. You will only speak when spoken to, or when told to. You will do what you are told to, or suffer the consequences. Do you understand, girl?"

"Ye... Yes." The girl mumbled.

The man stood back up, his tall stature dwarfing the small girl on the floor. Nodding, he reached out to her, "Good. Now stand up." Gingerly taking his hand, she stood back up, pushing her peasant smock and sweater back down as her mother sho... had taught her. He nodded as she looked up at him, and then asked, "So, what is your name, little girl?"

"N.. Natalia Rom..om.. Romonaova."

Taking the hand he still held, he led her towards the door he had entered from. "Yes, now let's go meet the rest of the girls. You're going to be spending a lot of time with some of them in the years to come."

-3-

"It's kinda a cool night for a walk, don't you think, Agent Rushman?"

Natasha stopped, the eye roll exaggerated as she turned around. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you actually take a walk, Mr. Stark." Tony put his hand to his heart dramatically, feinting insult.

"You wound me, Nat. I think you of all people should know what lengths I go through to keep all of this," Tony waved up and down his body, "in shape!" The smirk returned as he walked up to her, getting to just within striking range, but wisely close enough to duck away as well.

Nat smirked and turned to walk away, "Preserving your body in alcohol doesn't count as exercise, Tony."

"Yes, hello 911? I'd love to report a wanted assassin lallygagging on the Mall!" Tony said theatrically into his pantomimed hand phone. He grinned as he got the response he wanted as she turned to glare at him.

Stalking towards him, she planted a finger directly where his arc reactor once was, above his heart, the force on his sternum causing him to wince. "Tony, we both know that if you thought I did ...that, you would've stopped me in the hallway, so cut the shit." Tony stared at her for several seconds as she glared up at the infuriating genius.

"What can I do to help? I may be many things, but I'm not someone who can let innocent people be targeted." Natalie hated when he used his honest face, it made it harder to remember what a jerk he usually was like.

"Well lucky for you I'm not an innocent person." Natasha turned, and began stalking away again, the memory of another girl not much younger than she had been in her young arms, the dead eyes staring off at nothing. "Go home Tony, don't get in more trouble with Ross."

* * *

Briefest authors note, for those curious: CA:tWS says Natasha was born in 1984, so that's what I'm going to use as a reference.


	3. Armed and Dangerous

_"Have you had someone take your brain and play? Take you out and stuff something else in? You know what it's like to be unmade?"_

 _"You know I do..."_

-1-

Watching the video for the hundredth time now, Natasha once again considered how the mystery woman on the film moved. She knew those moves, because she used them as well; moves that had been drilled into her day after day, hour after hour, for years.

Which was impossible, since she was the only surviving student who learned those moves. Between the students who didn't survive the Red Room, and the deaths of the few who had, Natasha was the only one left above ground... well, obviously that she knew of, since the video said that there was at least one more now.

But from where?

To her left, her phone was ringing again. Steve was persistent, and if she wasn't so preoccupied with her current situation, she might have even found it endearing. The ding that followed meant Steve had left another voicemail as well.

As she looked back to the monitor, the video recycled to the beginning of the attack. The whole encounter took one hundred and fifteen seconds, and the other videos of the attacker escaping out the front to the stashed were not much longer.

Natasha closed her eyes, trying to think of where she could find the last remnants of the Red Room staff.

-2-

 **Siberia, 1996**

There was a bright light above the chair, burning into her eyes. The buzzing in her ears matched the buzzing in her head. She tried to remember why she was in this chair, but even thinking hurt.

A painful clanking sounded, and she tried to turn her head to see what was making the noise, but her attempt to move her head didn't work, and she couldn't figure it out why. The sudden stop only made her head feel worse, but the noises were starting to make sense, footfalls. As she was just realizing someone was coming, a tall thin woman came into her view, limited by the fuzziness at the edge of her perception, and the dank lighting. The woman's face was severe, and her mouth was moving, the girl could hear noises - was the woman speaking?

There was a pinch in her arm, and the girl tried to look to see what had caused this, but again she couldn't get her head to move. When she tried to move her head again, she finally noticed the pressure on her forehead, was she strapped down? The woman disappeared - when did that happen - and she still couldn't figure out why her arm had a pinch in it. The woman came back with bags on a pole attached to some tubes - what was happening? The woman was moving the tubes, and now her arm was pinching again.

The girl closes her eyes, and she can see her papa again, holding her in his arms as they walked to the market. The sun was bright, and his smile was so wide, her mother holding onto his other arm. Mama was so beautiful, as the sun reflected off her fiery hair, and they were talking to each other about how the family was going to hav...

A new warm feeling rushed up her arm, and the girl opened her eyes again, the pole the woman had brought now had another bag, light blue. The burning finally reached her head, and Natalia finally felt her vision come into focus.

"What is your name, girl?" The nurse asked, her voice clipped.

"Natalia Romonova, ma'am" was the instant reply.

The nurse looked over Natalia's shoulder, her eyes wide. Natalia heard a grunt from behind her, followed by the squeaky wheels of the machine she had been forced into earlier. The image of the dead girl in her arms once again came to her, the dull and lifeless eyes staring off, her body pulling Natalia down until she released it. She could still hear Drakov behind her, screaming as his daughter flopped to the ground, the head lolling off to one side, staring lifelessly at her screaming father.

The memory - nightmare - was interrupted as the device clamped onto her head, the woman placing the padded stick into her mouth again. The sound of the power cycle on the machine filled Natalia with dread as it reached peak level, and then the intense pressure again filled her head, and for a brief second she saw he father's face, the Drakov girls face, the reflection of her own face in the mirror in her bedroom before the fire, and then everything went dark again.

When she opened her eyes again, she could smell burnt flesh, the chair she sat in was broken, the arm restraints were loosened, the arm rests they were attached to were tilted upwards slightly.

A woman walked up, she was tall and thin, her face was severe.

"What is your name, girl?"

"Na.. N... Natalia?"

The name sounded foreign on her lips.

-3-

The ringing phone woke Natasha up, her neck stiff from sleeping in the chair awkwardly. Glancing at the phone, she saw it was a text from Clint.

' _Check the news._ '

Swiveling in her chair, she turned up the volume on her tv, where she saw a two star general at a podium.

"We are calling for all citizens to be on the look out for and report any sightings of the wanted suspect Natasha Romanov, aka The Black Widow. She is the prime suspect in the murder of Senator Eldon Smith, his deputy, and three Capitol police officers." The general, who the TV was naming as General James Herring, pointed to a picture of Natasha on the podium, taken from the SHIELD files she had released to the world a few years ago. Of all the pictures they could have used, which there wasn't that many she mused, they had to use the one damned picture she hated the most.

"She is to be considered armed, and highly dangerous. To any police organizations who receive a report of Ms. Romanov, we ask that you not approach or try to detain her under any circumstances. In co-operation with SHIELD, my unit will be working to detain and apprehend the fugitive." Natasha swiveled to her computer and began to look up this new wrinkle in her life.

Her phone began to buzz again, Steve was being the Boy Scout to the very end. Obviously he had seen the news as well. Sighing while continuing her breach of the Defense Department systems, she answered her phone as calmly as she could. "I just saw it, Steve. Relax, I'll be careful."

"Nat. Natasha, listen. Maybe you should try turning yourself in, until they can figure out who's really behind this? I'm sure Tony can help wit..."

"Yeah, because Stark and I have a long history of mutual trust and admiration."

"Tony may be an ass, Nat, but you know he won't just throw you to the wolves."

"Says the guy he almost killed a few months ago." Natasha replied sharply.

"Yeah, well," the super solider sighed, "that was kind of a two way deal. It's not like he walked out of it feeling all that swell, not to mention he doesn't have accelerated healing."

For the first time since the attack at the Capitol, Natasha smiled. "Leave it to you to find a way to forgive a guy for trying to kill you and your best friend, Steve."

"Well, I understand feeling betrayed." He paused, leaving a pregnant silence.

"Natasha, let me help you. If you won't go to Tony, then let the rest of us help you. We could get you to Wakanada until we can clear your name."

Finally, her system had broken through the firewalls, and she began reading the information on "Special Projects Task Force" headed by Major General Herring.

"Nat? Hey, you there?"

"I gotta go, Steve."

"Hey, wait Nat..." Steve's voice disappeared as she ended the call.


	4. Office Politics

Breaking into offices was, by definition, pretty easy. Wait for everyone to go home, slip in, slip out.

Breaking into Senator Smith's office was even easier, since it was closed and secured while the investigation into his death was finished. Slipping into it was only made minimally more difficult by the enhanced security surrounding the building still. What made this easier was that since she was already being hunted, discreet searching was not required.

The information she had found on the DoD servers had explained much of what General Herring was doing, except the only point at which he and the Senator had a connection was a Project Phoenix. Everything she could find said that Phoenix was particularly opposed by the Senator in the committee he chaired, which ran many of the oversight panels on military science projects. Vexingly, however, the Phoenix files were encrypted in a manner Natasha had never encountered before, and while her system could break the encryption, it requires time.

Time was unfortunately not something she had.

Tossing the Senators office was the next time multiplier she could think of, finding some clue regarding the nature of the project. She hadn't been able to find any hard documents, so now she was waiting for her password program to open up his computer.

* * *

 **New York, 2011**

Coulson was amusing, Nat thought as she watched him from the chair she was flopped in across the sterile room from her pacing fellow agent. He had shown her his card collection many times, and the small shrine to Captain America he kept in his home office was borderline adorable.

But this, THIS, was just amusing. He was hovering just out of reach of the freshly thawed and sleeping super soldier, the look of awe on her friends face was making her snicker. She looked back to the tablet in front of her, refreshing herself on the information on Project Rebirth - the Super Soldier project of the SSR that had created one successful graduate, and had left a wave of destruction in the following sixty plus years trying to recreate that one success.

Natasha had left Harlem not that long ago, still recovering from the latest attempt to make soldiers great again. The paranoia that these programs created in SHIELD and in the governments of the world due to their destructive nature when things go wrong was understandable. Watching the footage of the Hulk crash through Harlem was disturbing enough, but the idea of being there in person was enough to make Natasha Romanov, the SHIELD agent other SHIELD agents feared, well ... nervous. How do you out maneuver something that huge?

Looking at the files on Project Rebirth, she fixates on a familiar looking blue liquid in the small vials. They bring to her mind a glimpse of a memory, buried somewhere deep. A woman standing over her, a cold look on her face. Pain in her arm. What few memories Natasha still has of her early years are often like this, glimpses of the past. This memory has come on so strong, she can almost feel the cold of the air and the pain in her arm, an odd burning sensation.

The memory starts again, still disjointed and fuzzy, a memory seen while on an acid trip, even. "What is your name, girl?" "N.. Na ... Natalia?" "Nurse, inform the Major we have a survivor." She sees some girls, looking so young to the adult Natasha, gathering around the younger redhead, her brain still adjusting to whatever hurt it. They push her, call her names, but the voices she hears don't match their mouths movement. The scene shifts, the girls are spread out now, three on the floor not moving, and the fourth - the ring leader - her arm twisted unnaturally away from her body, the arm being held by someone, no, by the young Natalia. The young owner of the arm looks at Natalia, and a voice calls out before her lips move, pleading for her life. The young redhead, mind still scrambling to figure what is happening, finds the plea disgusting. The young injured girls mouth goes wide as a scream Natalia doesn't hear escapes her mouth as the arm is snapped, the twisting motion causing bone to tear out of the skin and thin top the girl is wearing. Natalia stares down at the screaming girl, her arm flopping as she tries to move it, and then the young redhead walks away, back to her bed to sleep off this headache as the other girls stare in fear.

Breaking out of her thoughts, she looked up at the sleeping soldier, whose decades in ice had done little to hurt the imposing, and impressive if she was being honest, physique. She wondered if she could take down the soldier if she needed to, if he woke up wrong. The Hulk was all brute strength, mashing and crashing through all obstacles in front of it. Captain Steve Rodgers was certainly capable of that form of attack, but watching the digitally restored film from both the SSR files and newsreels said that he was a man first, who fought. She could beat a man if she had to, but what if there was a beast where the man had been?

Well, Natasha paused, that was a concern if he woke up at all, really.

More importantly, she hoped that Coulson could wait until the man got out of bed before trying to get him to sign the damned cards.

* * *

The door to the inner office burst open, and two Capitol police officers came through. Silently Natasha whispered a prayer of thanks that Barton wasn't here, because she'd never hear the end of it. Caught by the night guards like a rank amateur. This week had really taken a toll on her, most people would consider a vacation once this was over. Natasha wondered if she should try that once, to see what it was like.

She was sure it would be misery, all that time with nothing to do.

"Freeze!" Shouted the guard in front, gun drawn. His partner was several steps back, also leveling his weapon at Natasha. Slowly, the redhead raised her hands, buying time to assess the situation before having to jump into action. The second guard was twitchy, his gun shaking ever so slightly.

"It's HER!" Officer Two says.

"You sure?" One replies.

Two looks at her, black tactical suit, gauntlets, hair, and ...yep, predictable pause over the girls. People on the Internet had a lot of opinions about why the suit tended to be unzipped as it was in the pictures from the Chuitari incident, either overly zealous feminists suggesting she was dressed by the patriarchy, and more than a few men not far removed from the cave suggesting she was either a tease or a slut. What most people, civilian or spy, would consider was that for all of Natasha's renowned skill in fighting, she was also a master manipulator, and sometimes words were not as useful as a well dressed woman.

Obviously, however, that wasn't going to help her tonight, since these guys think she killed three of their coworkers, and possibly friends.

Two finished looking her over and then gave a brief glance at his partner, trying to figure out, perhaps, how he could be so blind.

Natasha quietly waited for them to do something. She didn't want to hurt them, but she also didn't want to be locked up before she could clear her name.

One stepped forward warily, taking his left hand off his weapon and collecting his handcuffs. He slowly tosses them near Natasha, and his hand goes back to his sidearm. "Ok, you! Put those on! Then get on your knees. Do it slowly!"

Natasha looked down at the cuffs, mere feet away from where she stood. They were too far away and too jittery to make a move that won't get them hurt, or worse. She takes a tentative step towards the handcuffs, Two making a slight move to keep her in his sights and One out of his field of fire. Keeping her hands up, Natasha takes a second step, making eye contact with Two as she slowly approaches the cuffs. Two tenses, expecting her to make a move, when he is suddenly gone, pulled from view and out the door. One, hearing the noise, turns to check on his partner before dropping backwards, his glock hitting the carpet of the dead senator's office and sliding to a stop right by Natasha as the sound of a suppressed weapon discharge echoes about the room.

A second shot in the anteroom silences Two, and a woman stealthily slinks into the room with Natasha. Her hair is straight and blonde, the rest of her face covered by a mask, just like the assassin in the hallway downstairs had worn. The woman's arm, encased in a dark grey tactical suit not unlike Natasha's, reaches up to remove the mask, the woman's bright blue eyes glint of joy as she levels the silenced weapon at Natasha's face.

"Привет, Наталья Романова. Я ждал много лет, чтобы встретиться с вами. А жаль, чтобы убить тебя так скоро." The sound of her mother tongue had never been said so sweetly to her, or gave her more shock than those words had just now.

"Hello, Natalia Romanova. I have waited many years to meet you. A pity to have to kill you so soon."

* * *

Yes, in blame Google Translate for my bad Russian translation. Anyone who wants to fix it please let me know. :)

Also, while I'm breaking my author notes rules, I'll keep the status on my stories updated on my profile page.


	5. Do you ever knock?

"Hello, Natalia Romanova. I have waited many years to meet you. A pity to have to kill you so soon."

* * *

The group of young girls surrounded around the two girls who circled each other. The brunette had several inches on the scared redhead, who was still very new to the group. They were outside, the spring day's sunlight the only warmth on the grassy courtyard they were assembled on. Today was graduation day for half the class, Madam Olga had said, the other half would be leaving the program. Natalia didn't understand at first what that had meant, but the two still bodies laying off to the side quickly educated her of what graduation really meant.

The girls finally stopped circling, the brunette crouched and lunged, tackling Natalia to the ground. They rolled over, until the taller girl leveraged her height to pin Natalia down, beating down on her face as she tried to block the blows. Finally she was able to get a leg loose, and took the opportunity to bring her knee into the other girls kidney repeatedly, and then used the reaction and pause to kick free and get back to her feet.

Natalia landed several blows to the injured kidney, the other girl sheltering her side. As the girl turned more to her side, Natalia raised her leg and brought her foot down hard on the taller girls knee, its sudden unnatural movement causing a sickening crunch as the leg bent inwardly, causing the girl to collapse. Natalia stood as she watched the girl writhe, not certain what to do now.

Madam Olga glared at the delay.

Sensing her chance, the injured girl knocked Natalia back down, rolling over and swinging out, her hand connecting with Natalia's neck causing her vision to roll. Raising her arms, she barely blocks a second blow to the neck. Pushing back on the arm over her neck, Natalia kicks the girls damaged knee again and, as the girl wails in pain, Natalia rolls over the girl and straddles her back. Leaning forward, she hugs her arms around the other girls neck, then leans back pulling hard. The adrenaline added to her sense of self preservation giving her the strength to pull a second time, this time harder and straight back.

Natalia feels as well as hears the neck in her arms snap, then release allowing her to lean back more, before finally releasing the lifeless head which bounces slightly on the cold ground as it lands.

Natalia rolls off the dead girl, the body already being dragged off to join the others who won't be graduating today.

For a second, she is elated. She survived, she is still alive!

But a quick glance at dead girl quickly tempers that joy. Later that night Natalia will wake up still hearing the pop of the girls neck, a girl whose name she never knew.

The first of many to come, she couldn't know then.

* * *

The blonde woman sauntered into the office, her handgun pointed at Natasha calmly. Her thin face had a pointed nose, the blue eyes glinting mirthfully. Natasha shifted her weight, trying to size up her new opponent. The girl was young, maybe twenty at best. As she had figured from the video, the blonde was around four inches taller than Natasha, most of which was in her longer legs and arms.

Screw it, Natasha thought, here she is. "So we going to do this, or you just going to keep pointing that at me?" Natasha asked pointedly. She crouched slightly, waiting for the trigger finger to move, one way or the other.

Smiling, the blonde lowered her weapon, holstering it quietly before moving to a wide stance, planting her feet. Cracking her neck, Natasha exhaled and lunged, moving towards the young woman before ducking under her, sliding on the tile floor through her feet and coming back up. She planted her feet as she stopped, pushing up and through the blondes shoulder blades, the women rolling to the floor before both springing up, arms already for battle. The woman kicked out, trying to take off Natasha's head with her booted foot. Ducking, Natasha grabbed the leg and rolling the momentum over her shoulder, threw the mystery assassin into the bookcase behind the desk, shelves, awards, and pictures crashing, falling with the body of the blonde, who landed and launched into a spinning jump over the desk, landing with a powerful kick to Natasha's shoulder, dropping her to the ground.

The two women circled for a second, before launching into each other, a quick barrage of exchanged blows and kicks, the fight exploding back through the door into the antechamber, the bodies of the fallen officers avoided as they moved. Finally Natasha was thrown across the body of the blonde, her taller physique giving her the leverage to propel her into a wooden chair, which promptly exploded in a hail of splinters and chunks of wood.

The redhead stood, wiping a bit of blood from a small cut on her face. As the blonde moved to attack her again, Natasha grabbed her arm, swinging her own body upwards, spinning around the blondes neck and using the momentum to pull the taller woman back and down hard on to the floor, the cry of pain the first sound she had made since her greeting. As the blonde moved to get back up, Natasha kicks her in the kidney, once, twice, three times, and then lands a hard blow the younger woman's face. Reaching back to knock out the woman, her movement is interrupted by the sound and motion of the main door of the office exploding inward as the large body of Steve Rodgers crashes through.

The blonde uses the entrance and Natasha's distraction to roll and land a double footed kick to her rivals torso, sending her backwards again into the pile of kindling that had been a chair a bare minute prior. Flipping up to her feet from her back, the blonde drops a cylinder from her belt to the ground, smirks at Natasha and leaps out the building through the previously intact window. Natasha and Steve look at the cylinder, then their eyes meet as they say to each other "Incendiary grenade!"

Steve runs forward, grabs the redhead who was still lying on the pile of chair, and jumps out the window as the office they had just been in erupts into flames, a roiling ball of flames chasing them out into the cool night air. The pair both land on the ground a floor below, rolling to a crouched position before standing up. The sound of a motorcycle in the distance the only clue of the whereabouts of the blonde interloper. Natasha watches the break light of the bike as it speeds out into the traffic, the blondes lead too great to attempt to catch up now.

Looking back to the broken windows of the office she had just been in, fire and smoke and alarms blaring, she then glares back at Steve. "Do you ever knock?"

The blonde super solider meekly shrugs before turning to head towards his vehicle.

* * *

"So, what was your plan, anyway?" Steve asked as he drove.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Well, before you came smashing in, I was going to knock her out and then ask her a few questions in a more private environment." She turned to glare at him again.

"Noooo, I meant before ...whoever that was, Who was that, anyways? Before she showed up, what was your plan?"

"Well, since it doesn't make sense for Herring's unit to be pursuing me, I looked him up. Normal special forces, science division stuff. Doesn't explain his interest in me, so I checked him against Senator Smith. They had fought over a project called Phoenix, but when I got my hands on the Phoenix files, they're encrypted in a manner I've never seen before. My system is trying to crack them now, but it could take weeks, months, or hours." She paused, sighing. "So I thought a quick check through Smiths files would be worth it. Obviously it was a good call, since Blondie there showed up to torch the place."

"And you don't know who that was?"

Natasha smiled, her evil toothy 'I'm up to something' smile, as she leaned in to his side of the vehicle. "Why, you want me to set you up on a date? Between Sharon and ... whoever that was, I'm seeing a pattern here, Mr. Rodgers."

Steve rolled his eyes back at her, but she didn't miss the blush that crept up his neck. She enjoyed toying with him, mostly because he made it so easy. "Ok, well SHIELD probably has people who can either crack that file, or have access to it directly."

"They can't help me, Steve."

"Just because they're rebuilding doesn't mean you don't have contacts in there, right?"

Natasha paused, considering this.

"Do you have your phone?"


	6. Shawarma

Los Angeles, 2016

Natasha had spent most of her life pursuing people, finding them and appearing when she wanted to be seen to give her an advantage in an interrogation or confrontation. She had even taught classes for SHIELD on the subject, so tracking down someone who was evading notice from SHIELD was actually fairly easy. These younger agents (or ex-agents, in this case) were good at the job inside the lines, but were often tragically short sighted in overthinking their covers.

Such was how Natasha ended up trailing her subject today, who was headed back to their hole in the wall apartment. However, for as classically bad the target was in hiding their tracks, they were fairly good and spotting a tail. Natasha realized she shouldn't have expected less from a protégée of Melinda May.

As her target turned down a secluded alleyway, Natasha hurried to not get too far behind, but as she herself turned the corner, the alley was empty. May would be proud, Natasha thought as she turned around only to have the alley way blocked by the very person she had been following.

A noticeably agitated Daisy Johnson had somehow gotten behind Natasha and drawn a gun on her. Once again, Natasha was glad Barton wasn't around as she made another sloppy error. This week was going to be the death of her at the rate it was going. Putting her hands out to her side, Natasha slowly reached up and lowered the grey hoodie she was wearing. The reaction was immediate.

Daisy's eyes bugged as she instantly recognized the red headed assassin, reflexively taking a step back and mumbling "Oh shit, you're ... her!", which was all the hesitation Natasha needed to step forward and knock the gun out of the younger woman's arms.

"Daisy Johnson, I need yo..." was all she got out as the younger former agent attacked, releasing a series of kicks and punches at the redhead.

While she might have entertained the attack under normal circumstances, Natasha had no mood for such generosity after being set up for a murder she actually hadn't committed. Each of the blows deliver by Johnson was easily blocked, and in a matter of seconds the girl had found herself not only blocked, but tossed hard into the brick of the building closest to the pair of women.

"You're a wanted killer! Don't think I can't take you down, Romanov." Daisy jumped up, again coming at Natasha with a second series of high punches and low kicks, once again easily blocked by the redhead, again throwing the brunette into a wall hard.

"Listen, I just need yo..." Johnson's hands raised up from her slouched crumple she had found herself, her fingers outstretched towards the approaching assassin, causing Natasha to slow as she cocked her head, waiting to see what the next move was going to be.

However, Natasha instead found herself being shoved against the opposite wall by what seemed to be air. Taking the blow off the building and dropping down, she rolled to her feet and stood up.

"Hold on, May didn't say anything about powers!"

Daisy had a cocky grin as she stood up, her arms in a similar pose, as if being ready to follow up if needed. "What, you have a problem with powers?"

"No, they just mean a different approach," Natasha said while discreetly fingering a Widow Bite for their next engagement. "Listen, I just need to ask yo..." Seeing the younger woman's arms flex still didn't prepare Natasha for the experience of being jarred and tossed like a rag doll against the wall again.

Johnson moved in closer as Natasha rolled to a kneeling position, Bite in hand.

"ALL RIGHT, THAT'S ENOUGH!" came the voice of a new interloper, Steve Rogers, who was now behind Daisy, a fact she had not known until that moment. Spinning around ready to defend herself against the new threat, until she realized she was dwarfed by the super soldier, recognition flashing in her eyes.

"Hey! You're ..." Daisy exclaimed like a school girl in shock, her eyes trailing down the super soldier, the leather jacket covering the just-too-small t-shirt which showed the chiseled torso of Captain America. "You're... damn." Blinking and gathering herself, she looked up as his face, jaw set taking in the scene before him.

"I said I'd park the car, I didn't think that'd give you time to pick a fight?" Steve said to the redhead, who was picking herself up off the ground.

Natasha approached the pair, shrugging. "You know me." Coming up to Daisy, who was still breathing hard with her stance nervous, she looked her directly. "So, as I was saying... I need your help."

Rodgers stepped forward, now catching Daisy's eyes. "She didn't kill anyone. We've ran into the real killer." Steven gave her his ernest, puppy dog eyes, "Help us, please."

* * *

 **New York, 2012**

The shawarma restaurant Tony had insisted they visit had been at first taken back by the motley group that showed up asking for food. At first they were told that they were closed as the front of the building had taken some pretty direct damage, and there was nothing but shards where the plate glass had been, so understandably there was some hesitation to let customers in. But when Tony pulled out a wad of bills - did he have a spot in the suit for that as well, Natasha idly wondered - a table managed to be cleared for the group.

Thor and Steve certainly had put away quite a lot of the meal, while Clint, Tony, and Natasha kept to a much more normal volume of food. Bruce was still coming down from the Other Guy, so his food was being eaten at a much more sedate pace.

The conversations had been intermittent, due mostly to exhaustion mentally and physically. For once even Tony was being quiet, leave it to him to be the most human about a near death experience.

During the fight, Natasha had mentioned Budapest to Clint, opening a dark period neither of them usually spoke about. How close she had came to dying that day was still hard for her to believe, and while she'd never admit it out loud, then or now, the thing that truly had scared her was how much she had wanted Clint to pull that trigger that day.

No matter how many times her brain had been subjected to the machine, she could still see their faces. She could remember watching the children jumping out of the burning hospital, the young girl dropping to the floor dead while her father screamed in the background. The final graduation ceremony, how she had gutted her rival with the butter knife that Madam Olga had thrown to the floor after the brutal fight had taken too long for the old woman to tolerate.

Clint always told people she had gotten sloppy, and that's how he was able to get the draw on her. They both knew it was a lie, and the only reason the archer had spared her life was because he saw the mentally destroyed woman in front of him. Had she been healthy, had she not been wanting to die that day, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he would've taken the shot.

Tony broke the silence, unsurprisingly, "So back on the ship, before, you know ... everything blew up, what Loki said about you, was that real?" He met her eyes, his own waiting, perhaps to pounce, perhaps ... she didn't know. The problem with Stark was his unpredictability, which is why she didn't like dealing with him. He was going to do what he wanted, damn the consequences.

"Hey man," Clint said turning to Bruce, "how did you get to the city so fast on that clunker of a bike, anyways?" Clint said this with his usual lazy smile, but the briefest of glances at Natasha let her know he was going to try to save her.

Natasha might have let him, but the look on Captain Rodgers face as he waited for the answer made it hard for her to let the question go. Tony Stark deserves nothing, because he will inevitably just take what he wants, but Steve Rodgers was a good enough man to need to hear an answer, and she knew that he'd remember her dodging such a question.

Natasha put her food down, wiping her mouth, if only to buy time to try to find the right answer to the question.

"Yes."

Clint hung his head, his hopes to spare his friend the pain of this moment dashed.

"So how'd you end up going from stone cold murderess to spy hero?" Tony asked, more curious than accusatory she was surprised to notice.

Natasha looked down, picking up her food again, quietly responded "Who says I was ever either one?"

Captain Rodgers leaned forward, taking another pita wrapped sandwich. "Well, Natasha, I don't know about your past, but I know you were a hero today, and that's what counts."

Even Tony didn't have a comeback to that.

* * *

"What do you mean she escaped? You foolish girl, you were supposed to capture her if you came in contact with her!" General Herring was a large man, six feet four inches and two hundred sixty pounds of muscle that spoke to his years in special forces. He was towering over the blonde, yelling into her face. What bothered him was how much it didn't bother her, how little his size and strength seemed to intimidate her.

What was worse was that she didn't even bother responding to him, just silently waiting as the elderly man they were both waiting on finally entered the room they were in, a mix between a command bunker and science laboratory.

"Da, Yelena. Ze general is correct, you were to capture Natalia if you ran into her, why did you not?"

Herring was annoyed with how the girl reacted to the old man, snapping to attention, the reprimand causing her to flinch. She began to reply, her answer sputtering out in Russian, which was perhaps the final annoyance the man could handle today.

"ENGLISH, DAMMIT. Speak English, I know you can speak it perfectly, so use it, girl!"

The blonde looked at the old man, who nodded absently. When she began talking again, her Russian accent was thick, once again antagonizing the general.

"The Black Widow was not alone, so I was not able to subdue her."

The two men looked at each other as this news processed.

"Yelena, who was with her?"

"Kapitan America", the blonde replied, her eyes down.

The old man turned to Herring, pointing a withered finger at him. "You said he was not in the country!"

"He's not! Everything we have says he and his fellow non-signatories are holed up in Wakanada! The girl must be lying." Herring reached forward to grab her throat, but before he could reach her, she had grabbed his arm, pulling it forward causing him to lurch forward. She used his momentum to catapult her body over his, her legs hooking around his neck as she spun, their combined movements enough to launch Herring off his feet and onto the ground, landing on his back hard. The girl was instantly on him, her knee in his windpipe as she leaned into his face. She spoke with menace, and a perfect American accent, as she snarled at him "I never lie!"

"Yelena!" The old man shouted.

The blonde stood up, using the generals neck as a launch pad, glaring at him as she rose.

The old man spoke as Herring rose back to his feet. "The super soldier is not problem. We will get Natalia back, and then we can finish our work."


	7. Phoenix

Natasha and Steve followed Daisy into her apartment, such as it was. It wasn't decorated, but it had a decent computer setup and air conditioning. She assumed her parents couldn't afford such a luxury when she was a kid, and maybe that's why she was always so happy for climate controls. Maybe she just missed the cold of winter.

Daisy sat at her terminal, turning to look at Natasha. "Is this clean?"

Natasha nodded. "Only been on my server, which is level 7."

Steve sat down on the floor across the room. The one chair in the room didn't look like it'd hold Natasha, much less Steve's larger frame.

Daisy plugged in the data drive, her system coming to life as it sped through the file, before beginning to decode the cypher. The system quickly dinged. "You're in luck, they're using one of my advanced cypher encryption codes. SHIELD must have been nice and sharing."

The display quickly went from 0% to 100% and the contents of the file spilled onto the screen. Natasha looked at them for a second before turning white and stepping away.

"Wow, a lot of these are in Russian."

Steve was already up, the look on Natasha's face letting him know something was up.

"Yeah, a lot of this is old Russian files about ... one person, and then we have some other files, mostly American military and Senate files, which makes sense with the killing of the Senator."

Natasha had by now turned away, leaning on the counter looking out the dirty window into the alley. Steve had walked behind her, being sure to make his foot falls obvious. "Nat?" He asked, slowly putting a supportive hand on her shoulder, which only caused her to stiffen at the contact.

"Ok, guys, my Russian translation is coming up. These are medical and case files for ... Natalia Roma ... noma .. offfv? I always butcher these names, sorry."

A soft voice comes from Natasha, "Romanova."

"Ah, that makes sense." Daisy is so entranced reading she hasn't noticed Natasha's distress.

"Weird her name is simila... oh my go... Ummm..." Daisy turns, sees Natasha's place across the apartment with Steve still holding her shoulder but looking back at Daisy. "I'm sorry, Natasha. I didn't realize..."

Natasha squared her shoulders, letting Steven's hand drop as she straighted up. "It's fine, you couldn't have known."

Natasha and Steve walk over to Daisy, who has returned to reading the files. Daisy begins to sort through as the translator churns. "Ok, so I think this is a case file for you..." Daisy trails off, hoping Natasha will fill in the blanks for her.

Nat nods. "I was raised in a facility called the Red Room during my childhood. The goal was to make master assassins for Russia to use. I was one of the few graduates." Steve clenched his jaw, the idea of making children into killers bothered him, and he felt for his friend whose childhood was surely unimaginable. "These are the files from that place about me."

The system beeped as new files became available. "Yeah, well it looks like there was video as well." Daisy hovered the cursor over the first file, waiting for Natasha to ok, which she did with a trepidatious nod.

The first video file showed a young Natalia being interviewed, before transitioning to a courtyard, the older video color muted to not show how green the grass was, as a barely older Natasha circled another girl before they attacked each other. Daisy shrieked as the other girls knee was kicked inwards, the horror of children causing such harm almost painful to her. As she watched the young redhead snap the other girls neck, Natasha could see a tear run down her cheek, a tear she wished she could feel about events that feel almost as foreign to her as a movie would.

Thankfully that video ends, and Daisy moves a shaky hand to start the next video, which starts with a woman starting the camera. A slightly older Natalia is restrained in the chair at the center of the video, the nurse who started the video being part of a memory fragment she has always remembered. She knows what this will show, probably the only time during this video she figures. The hound Natalia struggles as the top of the chair comes down, its ominous jaw-like structure closing shut to surround her head. The nurse shoves a roll of gauze into the young girls mouth as the whit of the machine warms up. The nurse then presses a button on the machine, causing the young girl to tense up, the scream through her clenched teeth around the roll of gauze. The machine whirred and the girl screamed for ten long seconds.

Natasha turns from the screen, running to the sink, dry heaving as the memory and video become too much for her. Daisy pauses the video while Steve gives her a glass of water. After a few seconds, Natasha nods at Daisy, who begins the video again.

The nurse in the video asks the girl a question, and the bound girl struggles to answer. The nurse moves to set up an IV when a man in a military uniform enters with a container in his hand.

"Who's he?" Steve asks.

"Major Leninivy Andropov, head of the Red Room." Natasha replies coldly. "He was killed in Sao Palo, when there was an internal struggle in the Red Room."

Steve tries not to react as he recalls the taunting Loki had tried to use on Natasha, including that city among the events that gave her 'red on her ledger'.

Once the nurse has the IV set up, she runs the blue hued bag piggyback on the IV, and the three watch as young Natalia reacts, seeming to come back to reality. The nurse again speaks to the young redhead, the girl now responds quickly and clearly. Daisy pauses, swivels around.

"It's says in the video notes that Red Room was given access to super soldier serum extracted from SHIELD in 1991." At that Natasha and Steve share a look, the events of the past summer still fresh to both. "So... I didn't know you were super soldier?"

Natasha smirks. "I'm not. Red Room couldn't get it to work. Most of the girls who had it died, from what little I remember."

"The notes say this is the first successful test, though."

"It was not the full strength serum, or something. More of a stamina, agility, and recovery improvement." Natasha shrugs.

Daisy turns back, resumes the video to see the Major nod his head as the nurse reset the machine on Natalia's head and shoving the gauze into her mouth again. The young spy screams as her body shakes, the chair creaking as her arms pull the rest.

"You know, I called Tony when he was brought back from Siberia. He said he asked Barnes if he remembered killing his parents, and Barnes said he remembered them all." Steve froze, not sure where this was going. "I guess I should be glad I can only remember some of them."

"I thought we weren't going to bring up Siberia?"

"You're just mad you got your ass kicked by a kid."

"Says the woman who was getting her ... rear kicked by a teenager?"

"Ummm, hello, right here. And I'm in my 20's!" Daisy exclaimed. "And I just found the new stuff, including Phoenix." She scrolls some more, eyes widened. "Phoenix is a plan to handle super and enhanced individuals via a special team of enhanced agents. They gained access to Red Room files, and want to begin a trial program. The only real roadblocks was Senator Smith and a General Bradshaw." Daisy pauses, "Hey, Herring is the guy trying to find you right?" Natasha nods. "He's the guy in charge of Phoenix."

"But why frame me for the murder of Senator Smith? If they have all this information from Red Room, why target me?"

"We could ask Herring," Steve says, "but he's surely going to be waiting for you. We should talk to General Bradshaw, find out what's really going on."

The speakers begin to scream the sound of an adult Natasha shouting in Russian. The trio turned to look as the final video came on, a younger but obviously adult Natasha being drug by five soldiers to the chair from before. They strapped her in, pressing the button to activate the machine, her shouts becoming a violent wails as the machine processed. A officer walked up, holding a picture to the now sedated redhead, speaking to her in calm Russian.

Natasha was transfixed as she watched. "So that's what happened. I remember Sao Paolo, I just could never remember why I went there."

"What? What did he say?"

"That was Capt. Zukhov, he was Adropov's second in command. He just ordered me to kill Adropov. This was how I ended up killing the closest thing I had to a father figure growing up."

"Nat, it wasn... "

"Just because I wasn't in control doesn't mean I don't feel responsible." Natasha grabs her gear, walks to the door. "I'll be back, gonna talk to Bradshaw."

Steve looks to Daisy as he grabs his jacket, his eyes ernest. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Johnson."

"Of course. Any time, Captain. Coulson will be jealous."

Steve pauses, "Yeah, I sure he would have been." He nods as he walks out the door.

Catching up to Natasha, they approach the car they had 'borrowed'. "Hey, Nat, wait for me."

"Steve, I can do this by myself."

Steve nods as he climbs in the car. "I know, but I didn't want you to be alone."

Natasha looks at Steve, a brief grateful smile on her face, then puts the car in gear and pulls out.

* * *

So... Natasha enhanced? The MCU has never really hinted at this, while the comics usually state she has some version of the super soldier serum. I've always felt that they've intentionally left her background vague to give them the most room to work story wise, but I also feel that some of her stunts (especially vs the Chiutari and vs the Winter Soldier) are above normal. So I chose a middle ground that also works for this story as well. Let me know how you feel.


	8. Things Fall Apart

"Look, all I'm saying is that this is wrong."

"Steve.."

"Seriously, it's not right."

"Steve, I'm..."

"Video replay takes away the humanity of the game. Where is the manager? It's just wr.."

"Steve!"

"What?"

"First, we're never listening to a ballgame in the car again. Second, we're here. Third," Natasha paused, turning to look him coquettishly, "are you sure this isn't because you're still mad the Dodger's left Brooklyn?"

Steve refused to take the bait, instead rolling his eyes and smiling as he looked out the window.

Natasha pulled the car into the drive of the house they had been looking for, it's well manicured lawn helping to hide the building and it's drive from obvious view. For being a career military man and a three star general, the house and yard had a more palatial feel than one would have expected. Natasha decided she must have missed the part about where he had come into money at in General Bradshaws dossier, but it was obvious that this was built with old money.

Steve looked around as he stepped out of the car, his shoulders stretching after now being free of the enclosure of the car. "You sure this is it?"

Natasha shrugged. "Last known address." They walked up to the door and knocked, and waited. Natasha could see the cords of Steve's jaw tighten and relax as they waited. He never liked not knowing what was going on, the WHY of the mission. Natasha always assumed it was the training she had been given growing up that made her more comfortable with knowing less about the whys of a mission, well, had been anyways. Then New York. Hydra. Ultron. The Winter Soldier and Zemo. If anything, the Natasha that was with Steve now was miles from the one he had met on that helicarrier deck four years ago.

She didn't always know how she felt about that much change in such a shirt time, but she knew it was better than even more change in a matter of seconds. At least this was by her own volition, she had grown, had tried to let someone love her, had become her own person, not an Agent of SHIELD, or the Red Room, but an Avenger.

Hell, four years ago she was anonymous, now she had an action figure with a grossly inaccurate chest size.

Finally the door opened to reveal a man in his early sixties, mustached and with a cigar in his hand. He looked first at Steve, then Natasha, then nodded. "I wondered if you'd show up here." He stepped back, letting them into the house.

Steve followed Natasha inside, so his larger frame hid the general from her view, meaning that by the time she realized he had closed the door and drawn a pistol at them, she had little options but to wait to see what the generals next move is.

"So," he began, "are you here to kill me, now that Smith is out of the way? Hmmm?"

Steve set his feet, ready to take a bullet for Natasha, or tackle the older man ('Was he older?', Natasha's brain side tracked. Steve is practically a hundred, after all). Natasha grabbed Steve's biceps softly, letting her come around her. The general wisely stepped back, but Natasha held up her hands. "I didn't kill the Senator, General Bradshaw. We're here to see if you have any idea who would want to kill him, and why did you think I was going to kill you?"

"Without me, Phoenix goes forward. Trained super killers for the US government, in the guise of Inhuman and gifted people control. That's not the America I signed up to serve and protect, and as long as I'm alive, it won't be."

Steve stepped forward, asking with his earnest voice, "Who would want to kill yourself and the Senator? And why frame Nat?"

Seeming to accept the version of events told to him, Bradshaw lowered his weapon. "Probably Herring. He's been a cold bastard for a long time, I just never wanted to think he would go so far as to kill a senator, much less myself. What he want's with you," nodding at Natasha, "I have no idea."

"What about the blonde he has working for him?" Natasha asked.

"Blonde?"

"Blonde female white, athletic, around 5'7". Russian."

"No... All Herrings test subjects are to be American soldiers, women yes, but I don't think he had any selected yet." Turning to go down a hallways, Herring motioned over his shoulder, "Let me show you what files I have here in my offi.." The general keeled over, grabbing his stomach before falling to the floor.

The office door before them opened to reveal the blonde, flanked by men in tactical gear and sub-machine guns. Natasha and Steve rolled back into the living room, drawing their own weapons, Steve pulling the general along with them.

"Natalia," the blonde shouted, her Russian accent lilting through, "it's time to come home. Give us the general and we can return to where you belong."

Steven looked at Natasha, eyebrows knit in confusion. Natasha shook her head at him, before responding to the blonde. "All my homes are burnt and lost." She briefly saw the burning hospital outside São Paulo, closing her eyes and focusing. Responding in Russian, Natasha continued, "So, little sister, do you have a name?"

"My name is Yelena Belova, and I will be the Black Widow when you are gone."

Steve looked at her for a translation. "She's a big fan, Fatal Attraction kind of way.". Seeing the continued look on his face, she rolled her eyes. "We really need to get you a TV in Wakanada."

A crunch outside the hallway entrance was the only warning as two of the men stormed the living room, one taking a kick from Steve, and then both being shot by Natasha.

"I counted six men before, you?" Nat looked to Steve, who nodded back. "Ok, four plus Barbie back there. You take him", Natasha said, indications Bradshaw, "and get to the car, I'll cover you. Then we make it back to Daisy's, it's the closest thing to a safe house we have right now."

Steve grabbed Natasha's arm softly, "Hey, be careful."

Natasha grinned with a cockiness she didn't feel, "Hey, you know me."

Steve glared back, "Yeah, I do." Picking up the general, he nodded to Natasha, who rolled into the hall, glocks in both hands as she began to lay down fire, making the men and blonde woman scramble for cover. After Steve cleared the front door, Natasha started to back towards the door herself when one of the men emerged to her right from the kitchen, forcing her to veer back into the living room. She could her the blonde, Yelena, giving orders via the headsets. The man in the kitchen was joined by another, who jumped through the kitchen window to pursue Steve outside. The remaining two men continued to advance on Natasha, Yelena not far behind.

Firing her sidearms again, she rolled across the hallway to the kitchen when she encountered a new problem: she was out of bullets. Sensing her pause, the two men rushed Natasha. She threw the pistols at their heads, causing them to swerve. Natasha rushed at the closer one, running up his body and kicking off his torso, propelling him backwards, she flipped into the second soldier, her thighs landing on his shoulders, bring all three down to the ground. Natasha quickly went to hop up when instead she took a boot heel to the forehead, knocking her back into the living room.

Natasha scrambled up as the blonde advanced on her. She backed up until she had passed the glass top coffee table, which she promptly flipped up with her toes at Yelena, who simply smashed through it with her elbow brace. Once she was again in range, Yelena began to trade punches and kicks with Natasha until they both turned as an unfamiliar sound clicked into place.

Prepping for an assault, Natasha was shocked she watched a plastic and metal cording surround both of the women, Yelena shouting at the men, when both she and Natasha seized as the electrical current ran through them both.

Natasha's world went dark as she felt the floor coming at her.

* * *

Steve got the general to the car, sliding him into the backseat. He moved to the front seat, adjusting it back to fit his height. Standing outside the driver's side door, he waited nervously.

"Come on, Nat."

The windows closest to them exploded as two of the men from inside the house exploded outside, rolling to the ground and raising their weapons, began to fire their weapons at the car. Without options, Steve hoped in the car and began to back out to avoid the fire, when he slowed as he saw through the still intact windows as Natasha and Yelena dropped as the net around them stopped flashing blue. Steve started to get out of the car when from above the house came a helicopter, the side doors open as a heavy machine gun began firing at the car.

Slamming the car into reverse, Steve sped the car back up the drive, watching between glances in the rear view mirror as the men loaded the limp frames of the two women, and their two fallen cohorts.

"Dammit."

* * *

The room was dark, most of the light came from the monitors, what few there were, around her. Her muscles once again felt the stiffness of such an electric overload, her head was still foggy as well. It took her a moment to realize that she was restrained, her head the only extremity she could move, although she kept it still in a well-trained feign of sleep. Across the room she could her shouting, a slurred and disjointed shouting, and a rush of bodies. From the sound of it, Natasha reasoned that the blonde, Yelena, had woken up as well; however she had no intention of feigning sleep, or letting bygones go for electrocuting her. Pans and tools went flying, a sound that was likely a body crashing into a hospital bed, then a crunch as a neck was snapped followed.

A door opened and the commotion ended, silence swallowing the excitement of a few seconds ago. The footfalls stopped where the body had landed, then several other footfalls as the body was taken away. Finally, the slow foot falls came her way, stopping just beside her.

The voice that came was a shock from the grave...

"Hello, Natalia. Welcome home."


	9. Resurrection

Daisy Johnson entered her apartment in the dark, navigating what sparse furniture there was to get to her computer setup without turning on the lights. The distraction of the Black Widow and Steve Rodgers (Captain Freakin' America!) had delayed her current search for the Watchdog cell in Los Angeles, but she had made up for it afterwards, finding several new clues to add to her file for more data mining. Tossing her jacket over the couch by the computer chair, it landed on the arm of the man sitting there. Daisy sat down and started to enter in her new information as...

...wait...

Dropping and rolling, she drew her weapon on the silhouette on the couch. The man raised his hands, slowly reached over to turn on the shade less lamp next to the couch, bathing the dark room in dull yellowish light with long shadows. Half of Steve Rodgers face was illuminated, his expression drawn and tight, a finger over his lips as he nodded to the uniformed man sitting at the other end of the couch asleep. There was a blood stain and a matching tear where Daisy could see Steve had patched up the General from what she assumed was a gun shot.

Relaxing, Daisy holstered her weapon, and searched the room for the Black Widow, when she didn't see her, a questioning glance to Steve caused him to look down and whisper, "They got her."

Daisy sat down, absorbing this information. When she had first been recruited to SHIELD, the legend of the Black Widow was one of the first she had been told late one night by FitzSimmons, even May seemed deferential to the woman when she was brought up. The only person who never bought into the mythology it seemed was Coulson, perhaps because he was the one who had spent the most time with the assassin over the years. His assertion that she was "a big softie" was greeted with shocked awe from most, and rolling eyes by May. The idea that someone had captured that woman was almost shocking.

Daisy wondered what FitzSimmons would think about the fact that she had (sort of) fought the Black Widow, or that she almost won - with her powers, of course. The beginning of the confrontation had made it clear that while May had taught Daisy a lot, she was not in Romanov's league hand to hand. Daisy now had a better understanding of what a shoo'd fly felt like.

Steve spoke up again, "I was hoping you and the General could piece together where they might have her." He nodded at the sleeping man, "He took a bullet got the stomach, but it was just a flesh wound. Bled a bit, though. Figured I'd let him sleep until you got back." Leaning forward, he handed her two pieces of paper. One had a name, "Yelena", written on it; the second was a drawing of a woman, almost photo quality. Pointing to the drawing, Steve continued, "That's the woman who killed the Senator. She was a few minutes behind us getting to Bradshaws house, but was able to separate Nat and I, then her guys electrocuted them both to capture Nat. I wasn't able to get back to them before their air support arrived." Steve looked away, obviously upset at the outcome.

Daisy grabbed his hand and squeezed gently. "Hey, we'll get her back, and get this straightened out." Daisy turned to her system, keying in new commands. "Let me start with the picture, then see what Bradshaw knows." Looking at the pencil drawing, she turned back to Steve - "You seriously drew this by hand?" Steve shrugged shyly. "Seriously, when they said 'Super', they really did mean in back in the forties..." Daisy shook her head as she scanned the image.

* * *

Natasha was having a hard time sleeping, the beeping of the monitors around her kept her from falling asleep. Maybe she shouldn't sleep, but it had been a long week, starting with the Lumerian Star, and ending with the exhausting search for a missing Steve Rodgers and the fugitive Winter Soldier. Finding Steve on the rivers edge had been fortunate, but his state since then hadn't changed. Since his admission, Sam and Natasha had taken turns sitting with him, waiting once again for the super soldier to wake up, although at least this time he wasn't frozen, or out of time. Well, any more out of time, Nat pondered.

"So... What? SHIELD falls and you guys don't call me?" A familiar voice spoke softly into the room. Natasha instinctively rolled her eyes at the sound of Tony's voice before looking his way, seeing the usual image of the semi-playboy billionaire, shirt and jacket - no tie, sunglasses, smug grin, and a still slightly glowing Pepper Potts. "What's up with that?"

"Well, Tony, I know you don't observe boundaries, but you did just have open heart surgery a few weeks ago." The stern look and pointed jab in Tony's mid back from Pepper was confirmation that this had already been covered by her before. Having spent more than enough time with the two, she could easily imagine how that conversation went.

"Well, sure, but the suit does all the work!" At the withering glares from the two redheads in the room, Tony switched tracks. "So," nodding at the sleeping patient, "how is Cap?"

Turning to look at him, the fire turned to anxiousness for Natasha. "The same. Most of the major injuries have healed, and the cerebral swelling his gone down. Now we're just waiting for him to wake up." Natasha perked as she cast an aside to the pair still hovering in the door, "Of course, when Steve discovers how much medical care is these days, he may choose to go back to sleep for a few more decades."

"Yeah, about that... " Tony grinned his famous smirky grin. "I think Cap will find the bill to be fairly manageable." At Natasha's glance, he shrugged. "It was the least I could do for Dad. Oh, and I did get him this..." Stark reaches into Pepper's bag, pulling out a Iron Man action figure with a bow on it. "It has articulated arms and legs! And it lights up!"

Natasha again rolled her eyes, moving to place the figurine on Steve's bedside table. Tony stepped behind her, softly speaking to her. "Listen, I've had sometime to do some soul searching these last few months. Bruce has been a big help with that - he's really a great listener - anyways... ", Tony pauses, the words he wants to get out seem to be failing him, "what I said to you after New York, about being a stone col..."

"Tony, it's fin.."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry."

Natasha pauses, nodding as she sees the face of the little girl with vacant eyes, her father shouting in the background. She sees Major Adropov's shocked face when she shot him in São Paulo, watching the hospital his body lay in burn to the ground, the tears never coming as the man who was almost her second father burns in the rubble. She remembers the eyes of the face she can't recall, and a shout from a body with no name. Barton's face in Budapest, ready to kill her to make her atone for the blood she has accrued in her ledger. And now, how many more will she find to add to the accounts once Hydra's secrets are sorted.

"Tony, don't be. It's not like that wasn't an accurate description of who I am."

"Maybe that's who you were, but like he said," Tony points at the slumbering Rodgers, "what you've done since then reflects who you are."

There was a pregnant pause as they both looked down on Steve, before Pepper coughed gently. "Ok, we got to go. Pepper is getting her last treatment today, which means I can't use her as a night light anymore." Turning to the aforementioned redhead, Tony perked up - "Hey, does that mean we can finally get one of those Iron Man night lights?"

Pepper glared as she shook her head. Turning to Natasha, she smiled and said her goodbye.

Tony looked to Steve, then to Natasha, "Let me know when he wakes up, we have some Hydra messes to clean up." Natasha nodded, and the billionaire was out the door.

Resuming her seated vigil, Natasha let her mind wander back to São Paulo, Adropov's voice pleading with her "Natalia, why are you doing this?"

* * *

"Hello, Natalia. Welcome home."

Natasha's heart bet through her chest at the voice, even as it was older and much weaker, she would know it anywhere. Opening her eyes, she turned to see his face, bathed in the faint light of the monitor above her that was beeping faster in pace with her runaway heart. She could see the thick hair, now completely grey, had grown since she had last seen him. His face had what appeared to be burn scars on his right cheek and neck, the bottom of his lobe scarred and slightly missing. But the eyes were the same, intense, inspecting, and imposing.

"You thought me dead, ya?"

Natasha nodded slightly, still in shock at the sight in front of her.

"Hmmm... Well for a brief time we too thought you dead. You disappear in Budapest, and are gone for a couple years, and then we discover you are not only alive, but working for SHIELD." The old man pauses, disappointment crossing his face. "You thought you could escape your past? What you are? Your family?"

Fighting the shock and adrenaline, Natasha found her voice - "H, How are you alive?"

Adropov smiled, looking her in the eye. "You mean, after you shot me and left me for dead in a burning hospital?" Turning, her waves over past where Natasha can see with her restraint limited vision; however it becomes clear who he was motioning to as the blonde, Yelena, approaches. "I believe you have met my daughter, Yelena. She was able to drag me to the elevator and get us down to the basement that day." Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he smiles proudly at the blonde girl, "Even then she was strong beyond her years." Turning to Natasha, he became more somber, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "And with your help, Natasha, we will make her even better, more stronger than even you, my greatest production."

"Me? What do I have to do with this?" Natasha asked, looking between the two above her gurney.

Nodding to Yelena, Adropov waits for her to leave Natasha's vision before he continued. "We spent ten years working with what little of the super soldier serum we were given, trying to make you girls even better, but you were the only one who accepted the serum at the levels. At the time we couldn't figure it out, but all the other girls either showed no response, or... " the old man paused, his hand slowly waving off "...they went mad as their body deformed. Only you seemed to take to the serum, but we didn't have the resources then to figure it out. Mother Russia was falling apart, dear Natalia, and when the new _**perestroika**_ came in to wipe out the Red Room, our resources were left barren."

Turning to Natasha, Adropov grins, holding up a finger in dramatic excitement. "However, we found a new friend in your new found foe, Hydra." The old man pulls up a chair, leaning into Natasha's face. "They found us a new benefactor, the US Army, and we all know how much the Americans love their toys, especially DNA sequencers and analysis." Placing a hand again on her shoulder softly, almost paternally, he continued, "We found that your family was a unique mixture of Russian bloodlines, very rare in modern Russia, which is why none of the other girls reacted as you did. Worse, you were the last member of your family, your parents and brother dying in the apartment fire." Brother? Natasha's head again spun. "So we worked to find a way around this problem, and finally we found a way to piggyback the markers in your body with the new batch of serum we have procured finally." A nurse walks up to the gurney behind the old man, handing him a vial and a needle.

"And all we need from you is some blood, and soon we will have a small army of Black Widows, available to the highest bidder." Natasha feels a prick in her arm, followed by a swab and tape. Adropov holds up the vial, now filled with her blood, looking at it in the faint light. "Amazing, the solution to such big problem in such small vial." Standing, Andropov nods to the nurse, who injects a syringe into Natasha's IV line, her world going dark again.

* * *

 **Brief Author's Note:** Some parts of the Tony/Nat scene was changed from my initial notes due to inspiration from this fic, which if you haven't read you should because it was really great: /s/11502209/1/Fix-a-Heart


	10. Suit Up

Natasha woke to the whirring of a machine, and more light than she had been in before. Blinking slowly, the room came into focus, there was some computers off to her left, most sitting idle, with laboratory equipment next to it unused. Keeping her head laying to the side, she felt for her restraints, which were fewer than before, but stronger. However Natasha was sure her range of motion was now increased.

There was a commotion to her left, the direction from where the machine whirring had been coming from, and now some humming of quiet discussion as well. Slowly rolling her head, the last of the sedative making the room move slower than her head was moving, Natasha waited until her vision caught up, breathing slowly to avoid the nausea. There were several men and women in lab coats sitting in front of a similar bank of computers and lab equipment that she had seen to her right. Standing behind them watching was Andropov, with a man in uniform that Natasha recognized as General Herring. Further off to the side Natasha saw Yelena standing with a group of around a dozen young girls, the oldest appearing to be around twelve of thirteen. Yelena caught Natasha's gaze, then quietly spoke to her father in Russian across the room. Andropov turned and grinned as he saw that his prisoner was awake, "Ah, Natalia, you are awake. Good. Good. Just in time to see how you're going to change the nature of espionage." He waved at the equipment behind him, "Here is where we steal your genetic advantage, Natalia." He pointed to the end of the tubes, where the vial of her blood was being drained a drop at a time, before being mixed with other chemicals she didn't recognize, before ending up a orange mixture that was being agitated in a small IV piggy back bag.

"Once we have tested this concoction, we will begin to complete our training for our little Widows," he pointed to the girls with Yelena, "and then we will begin to offer them on the market for the world to use. The Black Widows will be the most lethal weapon available to anyone who can afford their services!"

"What the hell, Len!" Herring interjected, his face red and nostrils flaring. "We gave you to support and infrastructure to do this to support OUR SOLDIERS! This is a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA projec"

The report from Yelena's gun drowned out the last of Herring's speech, the rest of his tirade lost as his lifeless body collapsed, the blood seeping from the bullet wound to his head.

"Da, and we thank you for your support, General." Andropov waved at the girls, six of which came forward to drag away his body. "Now, just a while longer and we'll be ready to begin, Natalia."

"So you're just going to keep me here as a blood bag?" Natasha spoke, finally. Her mouth was still cottony from being sedated for so long.

"No, my little Natalia. The little Widows will need a mother to guide them, to prepare them for the world they're going to be going out into."

Natasha sneered. "You think I'd ever go back to you? To this world?" She closed her eyes, leaning her head back. "Never."

Andropov was silent for a moment, then said softly while his footfalls told Natasha he was walking away. "Perhaps, my littlest widow. We shall see."

* * *

Steve Rodgers rode in the back of the very large automobile, staring out the windows at the city around him as they drove. In someways the city looked the same from when he last saw it, but just like the weird automobile that seemed almost as big as some troop trucks he'd ridden on in Germany, the city was bigger and brighter than he remembered it.

"You've been asleep Cap, for almost seventy years"

He was still trying to wrap his mind around that.

Seventy years.

Was anyone he knew still alive?

Peggy?

Peggy.

He closed his eyes, willing that thought down until later.

Steve opened his eyes as the automobile bounced, the lights of outside disappearing as they went under a building, the artificial lights hurting his eyes. They proceeded down until the turned at a set of doors where the fleet of automobiles stopped, letting the imposing dark skinned man who seemed to be in charge out of the other side. A man in a suit approached Steve's side and opened his door. Steve stepped out, taking in the way all the men and women watched him with awe, which was disconcerting.

"We didn't get a chance to do introductions before, Captain Rodgers." The dark skinned man with the eye patch approached him, extending his hand. "I'm Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD. Come this way, Cap.". Fury turned and walked into the doors that somehow opened on their own, the other men following Fury into the building. Steve haltingly followed, taking in the weird doors and the hallway with odd decoration. "SHIELD was founded by Peggy Carter, who I think you know, out of the SSR. Like I said, I apologize for the show before, we wanted to make it easier to break it to you."

A red headed woman entered the hallway in front of Fury, wearing a black pair of trousers and matching jacket, with a red shirt beneath it. "Hey, you were ..."

The woman turned her head to look at him, then gave Steve the most beautiful smirk he had seen in a long time, which he felt an instant pang of guilt for, Peggy having just kissed him what felt like hours ago. The redhead then spoke softly but confidently to him, keeping his gaze. "No, that was a tall redhead. I'm the short redhead. There's only so many of us, Captain."

"Yeah ... Sorry, it's been a busy day for me."

"Really? Kinda quiet here so far, ordinary day." She turned to Fury, again flashing that smile/smirk, "So, who gets to call Coulson? He's gonna be upset."

"Well, we can hold off on that for a while. He's at PEGASUS for a while." Turning to Steve, Fury motioned to the (short) redhead, "Cap, this is Natasha Romanov. She's going to be helping you for the first few days adapt. She's very good at adapting to situations as needed, and went through a culture shock herself a few years ago."

Steve nodded to Natasha. "Ma'am."

She turned, offering her arm in the direction to which she came. "Captain Rodgers, if you'll come with me." He walked down the corridor she directed, which led to a bank of elevators. "We have a suite set up for you that's not quite what you woke up to, but closer to what you might have been used to before you were asleep."

"How am I alive?"

Ms. Romanov punched the up button. "Eirskin's formula. When you crashed the Hydra plane, you were frozen. Somehow between those two factors, you survived. When explorers found the Hydra plane, they found you. Once it was realized you were still alive, SHIELD brought you here to thaw and recuperate." The elevator dinged and they stepped into it. "That was a few months ago. Mostly we've been waiting for you wake up."

The woman stopped talking, letting the pause hang while Steve tried to absorb that information. It really did feel like it was just a few hours ago when he had kis... jumped on that Hydra plane. How could it have been seventy years?

"Captain?" He felt her hand on his arm, "Steve."

He turned to look at her, his thoughts clearing.

"We're going to get you through this. What you need to do is not fight the confusion, the denial. This is a loss, a big loss. We like to say there are fives stages of loss - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance." The elevator slowed, and the doors opened. "You've had thirty minutes to discover what you lost, you have to let this denial and doubt happen. It'll make it easier."

Steve clenched his jaw, his breathing shallow. "Easy for you to say, Ma'am. But I doubt our experiences are going to be similar."

"Perhaps, but I've lost everything I thought was real myself once before, I know what that pain is like."

* * *

" _I know what that pain is like..._ "

Steve jolted from his nap to the sound of General Bradshaw groaning as Daisy tended to his wound.

"Dammit girl, you have all the bedside skills of a fucking sadist."

"It's not like you're much of a houseguest, you know?"

"Hey, what's going on?" Asked the groggy super soldier.

"What's going on? Your freak show friend here is a fugitive, and she's not exactly gentle at cleaning wounds either." The general growled.

"Hey!" Daisy shouted, the room shaking as she shouted. "Screw you."

"OK, Stop!" Steve said firmly. "Where are we on tracking down Herring or the blonde?"

Daisy stood up, heading over to her computer. "Well, thanks to some leads from General Douche, I have about three possible locations narrowed down. I'm running some search routines on the time frames that they would have brought Romanov.."

"Natasha."

"...brought Natasha in. Hopefully we can get a hit on one of those."

Steve stood up, pacing to stretch his legs. Bradshaw was looking upset and anxious.

"General, what's going on?" Steve asked pointedly, tired of the tension in the room.

"What do you think is the problem? I was almost killed today, then dragged by one fugitive to a crack house turned squatters home of another, an Inhuman freak no less." The floor shook again as the General continued, "So YOU TELL ME what's going on?"

Steve stopped and stepped towards the General. "I'll tell you what I see. Once again the world is in danger because of that damned serum. And you have a military agency working against the interests of America. One of the best people I know, one of my best friends, is being framed for something she didn't do." Steve points at Daisy, "And the one person who helped us, and probably saved your life today, gets called a freak in her own home by the person who she is patching up. So maybe you need to get a hold of yourself, General."

Daisy's computer chose that moment to ping, the trio looking towards it as the system pulled up security video of a group of men in tactical gear exiting a helicopter, pulling out two unconscious women from the helicopter.

Steve peered at the video as it looped back, replaying again. "Nat." Pointing a finger at the screen, he asked "You know where that is?" Daisy nodded. Steve grinned determinedly, "You got a suit?"

Daisy smiled, slightly blushing, "Yeah."

"Suit up. We'll drop him," pointing at the General, "off on our way."

* * *

Natasha woke again to the sound of commotion, opening her eyes to see the lab coat people rolling in another gurney with straps, followed by Andropov and Yelena. Once they had the gurney locked in place, Yelena removed her outer jacket, leaving her tactical pants, boots, and athletic top on, and slid onto the gurney. The lab coats came up and began connecting the leads from the monitors to her chest and head, as well as running an IV line, which they connected to a pole that had a saline bag, as well as two other bags, one the orange creation Natasha recognized as being made from her blood. The second bag was smaller, but a crystal blue colored serum filled it, both smaller bags being set up to run piggy back through the IV line. Yelena looked to be fairly calm, but Natasha sensed the nervousness she was covering.

Laying down, the lab coats opened the IV lines, and the orange serum began to flow down the IV lines, followed a few minutes later by the blue liquid.

Having been sedated for so long, Natasha was anxious to remain awake and begin to figure out her escape. Fortunately the process for giving Yelena the serums was taking a long time, so most of the room was empty, save a token lab coat monitoring her status. Natasha began to work her restraints, trying to identify a weak spot, subtly pulling and flexing at them. She was starting to get some traction on her left arm restraint when the monitors on Yelena began to trill in alarm. The room flooded with the lab coats, Adropov, some of the girls, and four of his guards, most hung back, except the lab coats and Adropov, who was yelling at them for answers.

Yelena, meanwhile, had begun to have seizures, flopping on her gurney as the lab coats tried to hold her down and treat what was causing her seizures. Her heart rate and blood pressure were swaying off the charts of her monitors, the injections of benzodiazepines doing nothing to stop the shaking.

And then as suddenly as it started, the seizures stopped, and the monitors went from a desperate scream to the painful monotony of a flat line report. Yelena motions stopped, her head rolling to the side, perspiration for the movement glistening on her head. The lab coats paused for a moment before moving into action again, this time injecting her to resuscitate the still blonde. The defibrillator was brought in from another room, crashing through the door as the lab coats rushed to bring her back to life. The paddles were activated, and Yelena's body flopped again as the energy coursed through her, to no avail. Increasing the charge, they applied the paddles again, again the young woman's body flopped on the table, and again there was no effect. There was a brief argument as they debated if they could or should increase past the current level, when Adropov pushed through the lab coats, dialed the machine to maximum, the sound of the capacitor charging shrilly piercing the air as he held the paddles above his daughter's lifeless body.

He placed the paddles on her, pushing the button and causing her body to again flop on the gurney, the sound of her body landing masking at first the sound of her heartbeat going wild again.

The reanimated woman jumped up and fell off the gurney, wildly lashing at the wires and tubes still attached to her, looking up for a second with a feral gleam in her eye before leaping at the closest person she could reach, a young woman in a lab coat. She tackled the woman to the ground, viciously attacking her, blood splattering from the blows as the woman's face disappeared. The guards at first were too stunned to do anything, but finally ran forward to grab her, two of them grabbing her arms and pulling Yelena up and towards the bed, before she stopped their movement. The two guards looked at each other for a second before Yelena tossed them off her, her breath ragged and seething as she scanned the group in front of her, preparing to attack again.

"YELENA!" Andropov's voice bellowed from the side of the room, her head twitching sideways to look at him. "Yelena." He repeated again, softly this time. Her breath slowed as she kept her father's watchful eyes, her body relaxing and coming to her full height as she stopped crouching.

Finally, she closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, her smile was that of a proud daughter.

"Papa, it worked."


	11. Party Tricks

**A/N:** For the record, NOT a Quack fic. But I did laugh my ass off at that moment, because I don't know how many people actually use Daisy and Natahsa.

* * *

The heat was sweltering outside.

Inside, it wasn't much better.

Inside the air vent she was navigating, it was completely unbearable, Natalia mused. She had spent her life in the frozen waste of Siberia, where the mild summer never got to the temperatures she was now dealing with. Once she was done here, a cold shower in the hotel room she had occupied would be the best first step to getting out of this country and it's oppressive heat.

Taking the left, her target loomed close. She slowed as she approached, giving her body some time to recoup. Planting the distraction explosives in the basement had required a long climb up to the third floor of the hospital where her target was. Peering in from the ceiling vent, she assessed the room, it's entrances and exits (two, both on the interior wall), how many others were in the room (Target, girl in bed, two nurses), and her exit plan (repel the outer wall via window exit).

The target was doting on a small blonde girl who lay in the only bed in the large room, attached to several monitors. In all her years of knowing the target, she had never seen him seem so kind to any girl, the sight made her blood boil with some emotion she was having a hard time placing. How could he care for some girl, when she had worked so hard for him. SHE was his star pupil.

When Vacily had told her that he was now in charge, and that the target was ...him, she couldn't believe it. He had betrayed them, Vacily said, and he had to be stopped.

Questioning orders was not something she was allowed to do, so here Natalia was, preparing to kill the only father she could remember, the few memories they had allowed her to keep, even if accidentally.

Downstairs, the guards were trying to figure out why there was a strange box near the elevator shaft. Having taken it down, they decided to take it to the Captain of the hospital security. He might know what the device was. When they arrived, he was signing for large canisters of LOX, which one of the guards thought was a funny way for smoked salmon to be delivered.

Upstairs, Natalia depressed the safety switch on the detonator, then clicked home the button on the transmitter that would activate the improvised grenade she had placed in the elevator shaft, the disruption would be enough for her to enter the room and dispatch her target and collateral before anyone would think to check on them, as well as masking the noise of her entry. However, instead of the loud bang she expected, the whole building shook, and a pressure wave gushed through the vents, causing Natalia to be pushed into the vent grate and down into the room. Landing hard, she rolled to her feet, shaken from the explosion that shouldn't have been that large, she watches as the three nurses flee into the smoke of the hallway, the windows of the doors nothing but shards of glass, like every other window in the building. Smoke was billowing up through the ventilation system, and the fire alarm was going off.

Major Andropov stood in the haze and paled as his creation rose from the smoke like a vesper from hell.

"Natalia?", he asked. Realization dawned as she leveled her weapon at him, "Why are you doing this?!". Her answer was the hot punch to his chest as her bullets pierced him, falling to the floor, the smoke and his blood loss causing his vision to become unreliable. Above him he could hear Yelena shouting as she rolled off her bed. Her saw a haze of red float away towards the windows.

Minutes later, Natalia watched with some emotion she again didn't recognize (grief?) weigh her down in her chest as the hospital burned. There was a triage site not far away, where not quite two dozen children had been placed. Further down the street was where the rest of the children, nurses, and doctors were being lined up for identification. That group was much larger, and she couldn't understand how this had happened, she was only supposed to kill her father figure, not all these other children.

For the first time since she was a young child, Natalia cried, albeit a single tear, as she watched them line up the small bodies in an ever increasingly long set of rows.

The sound of another young child screamed in her head again, a memory she could neither remember nor quite forget.

She was supposed to be at the extraction site in five minutes, but she couldn't move.

She didn't know if she could go back, she thought, as another small body was carried out of the still smoldering building.

For the first time in her life, she began to feel the red he had accrued in her life.

* * *

A jostle woke Natasha up from her memory, as the gurney she was still strapped to rolled down a dimly lit hallway.

"Ah, you're awake." The voice of the very much alive Andropov came from her right, but she didn't give it the satisfaction of moving her head. "I want to thank you for your contribution today, and in the future, my little Natalia." The gurney, along with Andropov and the guards following him, turned the corner, as he continued. "Together we shall see the Red Room truly see it's original goal be realized, a global power to topple the oppressors of the West." Andropov guffawed, "Irony of course is that we shall bring them to life in the West. Without your help, we could never have done it, Natalia!"

Natasha closed her eyes, quietly responding, "You're getting senile if you think I'm going to help you. I've worked too hard to make amends for the shit I did for you to go back now."

Andropov was quiet for a minute, Natasha could almost hear him nod his head. "Ya, I feared your SHIELD brainwashing might be hard to shake." The gurney slowed as they entered another room, the lights flickering on as they raised the head of her gurney, Natasha opening her eyes again to lay eyes on a sight she had hoped to never see again.

The chair looked different, the machinery and electronics newer, but the head cradle and electrode points were the same to the chair that she had been in so many times in Siberia. Natasha cursed her body's betrayal as her pulse skyrocketed and her breathing increased correspondingly.

Sounding less afraid that she felt, she turned to Andropov, "That thing never worked as well as you thought it did."

He turned to look back at her, matching her stare as he nodded. "Ya, that's why we build new one. This one is better."

* * *

Steve Rodgers pulled the jeep up to the gate of the abandoned factory, the lights of the building off except a few on the first floor. Exiting the vehicle, he met Daisy Johnson at the front, standing and staring at the twenty foot fence that surrounded the factory.

"It's like they planned for it to become a mad scientists warehouse when building it, ya know?" Daisy said, gesturing to the large and thick iron fence. The gate itself had a large lock on a chain holding the sides shut. Steve gave the chain and lock a firm tug, morosely laughing.

"This was easier when I had my shield."

Daisy stepped forward, shooing him back with her gauntleted hands. She took hold of the lock, grasped it, and then Steven could hear it shake before it fell to pieces and out of the smaller woman's hand.

"You would've been handy to have back in Germany when we needed to break into Hydra bases."

"I make a pretty good martini, if you like them shaken."

Stepping forward, Steve laughed. "You know that makes it weaker?"

Daisy shrugged. "Hey, you got your party tricks, I got mine. Besides, haven't you seen James Bond?"

"Not yet." Steve nodded towards the factory, "It's on the list."

Daisy followed, her face scrunched. "List?"

* * *

The guards stepped back, having strapped Natasha into the chair.

"You know, I forgive you, Natalia. When I found Vacily, he told me - er, eventually - what he had done. You were taught to not question orders, so how can I be mad you did well? Although I really thought we had taught you better on how to set explosives. Attaching to oxygen tanks?" Andropov wagged his finger at her. "I expected better from you."

Her brain took this information in, processing in her adrenaline fueled pace quickly. "No, I placed them in the elevator shaft ...so it would cause a ...but that's why ...it wasn't my fault?"

"We can talk about all this soon enough. Let's get your first treatment done, it's always the hardest, ya?" Andropov nodded at the nurse, who reclined the chair back, the head harness coming down when the lights flickered and the building shook, a metal twisting sound coming from elsewhere in the building. The lights flickered again as the building shook again, the chair shaking as well. Andropov jerked his head to the guards, who ran out to investigate the disturbance, following them out as well. The lights were now going in and out every few seconds, and the chair's capacitors shrieked before one by the armrest popped, causing Natasha to wince as her arm was jerked up and out briefly.

The nurse turned to draw up a sedation to keep her patient under control. Turning around, she approached the woman whose eyes were now closed. The lights flickered again, and she slid the gown up the redheads arm and leaned to inject her when she realized the arm restraints were gone. The pause was all Natasha needed as she head butted the nurse, grabbing the syringe and plunging it into her stomach and injecting her. As the nurse fell away from the attack, her movements became lethargic as the sedative took hold. Natasha released the other arm restraint, and then freed herself from the source of many a future nightmare. Barefoot and in a flimsy gown, she was certainly not in a good fighting condition.

Right.

She poked her head out into the corridor, then slinked into the hallway. Trying to retrace her trail to where she had been kept before, she could hear gunfire being traded, with more seismic activity adding to the cacophony. Shouting could also be heard matching some of the quakes, no doubt someone who either got crushed by falling objects, or by "Quake" herself. Natasha had spent a lifetime earning the title that she now bore, for better or worse; however she wondered how the younger woman felt about her given moniker.

Obviously a thought for later, she thought as she stepped into the room she had been in before, where she had witnessed Yelena's transformation, she quickly found two things she desperately wanted: her clothes, and the remainder of the serum from her blood.

Getting dressed, she threw the vial of orange liquid at the laboratory setup that had created it, the glass breaking and the orange flotsam gelled down the tubes and beakers. Opening up the gas lines at the lab station, she walked away, drawing one of her hand guns and firing at the gas outlet, the resulting spark more than enough to cause the small amount of gas that had come out to ignite, engulfing the station, the orange goop, and her blood in flames.

* * *

Daisy and Steve had been pushed back by the remaining guards into a tight hallway, where the resulting fist fight had been quickly ended, first by Steve taking out several of them with a makeshift shield that had once been a lid to one of the large vats in the abandoned factory. The rest had been stopped by the wall they had collided with via a directed wave from Daisy. There was a part of Daisy that knew that if she ever got the chance to talk with Phil, he'd be jealous that she'd gotten to fight next to Captain America. The sadness of the pain of her chose separation from the father figure caused her to stop thinking about that and focus back on the current situation.

"Ok, so we know she isn't that way," Steve pointed. They quickly started up the hallway towards the other part of the warehouse they hadn't investigated slash destroyed.

"No, but I am here, Captain Rodgers!"

The voice that came from behind them caused them to both stop short and turn. Unfortunately for Daisy, the body that had issued the bravado filled statement was closest to her, and attached to the fist that connected to the side of her head, causing her to slam into the wall, her world to going dark.

Grinning madly, Yelena crouched into a fighting stance, her hips swaying as she was keeping herself loose and low. "I've always wanted to fight the great Captain America. Watch his face as I take his pride and then his life."

"Where's Natasha?"

The madness in her eyes turned sour, the already green eyes clouding with jealousy. "Natasha, Natalia, blah blah. She is the past. WHO CARES WHERE SHE IS?" The woman leaped into the wall, using the movement and height to push off and quickly land a punch on Steve's chin, causing him to reel backwards in shock at the power she had landed.

Steadying himself, he brought his fists up. "You didn't have that punch last time we met."

The blonde gave a toothy grin, as she ran at him, landing several punches and kicks, moving faster than Steven could block, his size in the cramped hallway making his ability to bring his full strength to bear. Finally he swung and connected, causing the young woman to fly backwards.

The victory was short lived, as she quickly stood back up, breathing heavily as she wiped the blood from her still maniacally grinning face.

Water began to fall from some of the fire spigots in the ceiling, some no longer working due to age and lack of maintenance, the fire alarm finally going off as well. Behind Steve, smoke was beginning to pour into the hallway. Yelena growled as she rushed at Steve, taking a quick dive to slide between his legs, grabbing his feet with her hands as she rolled on her back and brought her feet to the small of his back, causing the super soldier to face plant into the floor. Wasting no time Yelena was on her feet, landing several blows to Steve's head and back as he tried to get up, the elbow to his neck causing him to shout in pain before sweeping her feet out from under her. The pair both rose, now facing each other from opposite sides of the hallways from which they had come.

Yelena shook her body, preparing to launch another attack when she saw Steve's eyes lock onto something behind her.

"Hey bitch, only I get to kill him." Natasha Romanov said, the smoke and fire behind her making her look like a dark shadow staring down the hallway. "I had to sit through CATS, twice."

"You said you liked it!"

Natasha quirked an eyebrow at Steve, then nodded at Daisy's prone form on the floor. "Take her, I got this."

Steve stopped for a second, before nodding and picking up Daisy.

Yelena glared at the redhead down the hall.

"You want to be the Black Widow? Come take it."


	12. Huh

_"You want to be the Black Widow? Come take it."_

Natasha had said that with all the pain and emotional agony that her life had given her until now. She had spent years trying to get away from the red she had accrued in her ledger, trying to tip the scales back even if just a little bit. Just when she thought that she had escaped the shadow of the Red Room, when she had saved not just people, but the world (somewhere in the back of her head, she could hear Tony's voice saying "Twice!"), her past came back to steal her life.

Again.

Fuck that.

Yelena's grin had quickly turned into a cruel grimace, stalking towards Natasha, ignoring the retreating figures of Steve and Daisy. Once they had turned the corner, she crouched into a fighting stance, waiting to see how Yelena would handle the situation. Natasha had faced Yelena twice, she knew they had an even amount of training, Natasha had previously had the power and experience edge. Now she knew she'd have to win by being the smarter woman.

Yelena, perhaps a testimony to Natasha's internal thoughts, growled and charged. Natasha turned her body, allowing Yelena's momentum to drive past the redhead, who grabbed her passing arm and spun her into the nearby wall.

Yelena, serum and adrenaline pumping, kept moving, running up the wall with Natasha's arm as a brace, before pushing off and landing on Natasha with a brutal punch to the upper chest, Natasha's clavicle screaming as she hit the floor, rolling back up and landing a surprise kick to the blonde's right knee, dropping her to the floor for a second.

The women slowly gauged each other, each trying to catch their breath and plan the next move. Yelena broke the silence finally. "The great Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow. All my life, all I ever heard. Natalia this, Natalia that. You show up to kill him, and he STILL loves you." The anger swelling in her, Yelena lunges at Natasha, swinging arms and legs at full strength, Natasha ducking and deflecting easily before grabbing Yelena's neck in a leg lock, using her own momentum to slam the younger woman into the concrete floor of the empty factory. Holding the neck in the lock, she raises her other leg, kicking her heel into Yelena's diaphragm repeatedly, the blonde grunting with each blow.

Behind them, the wall that Natasha had came from collapsed as the fire she had set expanded, the pyre behind them now sucking in the fresh source of air. Both women scrambled to their feet, the air now thick and dry as the fire moved forward towards them. Yelena seized the momentary distraction to land a blow to Natasha's side via a well placed quick kick, causing the redhead to fall into the wall by her, which Yelena quickly shoved her against again, holding her there by the neck.

"You can burn here, bitch, and I'll never have to be in your shadow again." Natasha went to drive an elbow into the arm holding her in place when she felt a knife slide into her stomach, before turning and twisting, the blonde obviously wishing to cause as much damage as possible. Closing her eyes, Natasha forced herself to ignore the fire in her stomach, the fire in the building surrounding her. Madam Olga's voice in her head reminded her that there was only two outcomes to a fight - life or death, everything else must be ignored.

Natasha opened her eyes, meeting the sweaty and blood stained face of the blonde who savagely grinning at her, then pulled her head back to the wall, pausing for a second, and then drove her forehead into the nose of her would be replacement with every ounce of energy she had left in her. Yelena fell back, stumbling into the wall, before standing back up, the blood pouring from her nose as she wiped at the rivulets almost as a afterthought, before attacking Natasha again.

The two women traded blows as they stood toe to toe, Natasha favoring her damaged stomach, Yelena trying to prevent blows to her head. The pair moved away from the encroaching fire, as parts of the ceiling were now raining down on them. Natasha finally got a opening, hooking an arm through Yelena's, throwing her against the wall and then pouncing on the prone woman, landing her Widow Bite gauntlets against the body of the younger assassin, the electricity pouring through Yelena, causing the woman to slump against the floor. Natasha falls off to the side, the fire surrounding her on almost all sides. Looking at the unconscious woman next to her, she mumbles "You might just get your wish."

The top of the roof near Natasha crashed down near her, the fire reacting to the fresh air by expanding, and the end seemed near for Natasha as she looked up at the hole in the roof, before realizing that the roof had crashed in not due to the fire, but because of what was likely a repluser blast from the descending Iron Man suit.

"Great, he's never going to let me live this down." Natasha sighed as she laid her head back.

As he landed, the helmet of his suit disappearing behind him, Tony looked around. "Listen, I know you're used to being hot, but this is a new level of self indulgence. If you wanted a good tan, I have a private island." He words were smug, but the smile was sincere.

"Shut up, Tony" Pulling herself up, she held her stomach wound as she indicated to the blonde on the ground. "Can you get her out of here?"

"What about you, hot stuff?"

"Don't suppose you know where the front door is?"

Tony turned, raised his arm towards the wall opposite Natasha, and blew a hole into the brick wall, the dark night now visible. She started towards the hole, then stopped to look at Tony as he was picking up the unconscious Yelena. "Tony." They locked eyes for a second, her's shining with appreciation. "Thanks."

Tony stood up, holding the blonde bridal fashion as his helmet reappeared, responding with the Iron Man voice, "You're welcome, Natasha." He then took off for the hole in the roof from which he had came.

Natasha stumbled out of the building, forcing herself to get away from the building that was now losing much of it's structural integrity as the fire rushed through the remaining parts. By the time she approached the open gates of the perimeter, the roof and two of the sides were down. Once again, she had left Andropov in a burning building. She wondered if she'd ever see him again. Leaning against the open gate, she watched the building burn for a minute before she heard a voice from her left.

"Nat? You okay?" Steve's voice was a pleasant surprise to her, and as she turned to see him, she nodded weakly.

"Yeah, don't suppose you have a ride out of here?"

"Hey! You found her!" Daisy's voice came from around the gate. She saw the slumped form of Natasha and ran up to her, pulling Natasha up and towards a parked jeep. Natasha saw for the first time the gauntlets on Daisy, smirked and said "Nice hardware. What do they do?"

"Oh you know, keep me in one piece." Daisy joked as the slid Natasha into the back seat of the jeep. Steve slid into the drivers seat as Daisy sat next to Natasha, opening the hole in the tactical top to inspect the redheads wound.

Meeting her eyeliner in the mirror, Steve spoke up, "Hey, we picked you up a present while getting our way out. It's in the back."

Natasha leaned back, as she felt Daisy push gauze and packing into the hole in her stomach, she caught sight of an unconscious, bound and gagged Andropov.

Natasha relaxed back into her seat. "You really do know how to shop for a girl, Steve" Natasha said as she closed her eyes, suddenly feeling the weight of the long day she had pulling her consciousness away.

* * *

Waking again to the sound of a heart monitor caused Natasha to panic at first, slowly opening her eyes to see that instead of a dark and decrepit building, she was in a clean and bright room, a window to her right glimpsed out to a jungle vista. To her left was the sleeping form of Steve Rogers, a copy of 'Casino Royale' in his lap. The change in her heart monitor as she woke up must have alerted the nursing staff as a woman came in to check on her, causing Steve to wake up and quietly wait for the nurse to finish her job.

"Hey."

"I keep waking up in a gurney with my clothes taken. If this keeps happening, I'm going to have to retire, or file a complaint."

"Yeah, I hear you there. You should be careful, keep sleeping like that and you might miss ...oh, say seventy years." The wide grin of Capt. Rogers was almost as good as a pain reliever, Nat pondered for a second. "I wanted to be able to tell you that Tony turned in Yelena and Adropov to SHIELD. You've been cleared of the Senators death."

Natasha nodded, waiting for her head to clear.

"Where are we?"

"Wakanada." Steve shrugged. "I figured you could use a vacation."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "You know how much I hate tropical climates?"

Steve laughed "It's air conditioned. And safe. Just sleep, Nat. You've earned it."

Natasha closed her eyes, for once letting the exhaustion ebb willingly.

"Mmmkay. Just this once."

Steve sat back down, watching her fall asleep again.

* * *

It was well after midnight in the shattered remains of Stark Tower, everyone else was asleep. Natasha hated sleep, hated not being awake. The Chitauri clean up had already begun, with Steve, Thor and Iron Man having spent most of the evening moving the largest pieces of the rubble out to help search and rescue operations. Finally, they had succumbed to exhaustion, retreating to the tower, such as it was.

Pepper had done the best she could given the resources available downtown to make accommodations for the Avengers; however most had ended up asleep in the living room, the breeze coming in the ruined windows making the summer air cooler. Thor was sprawled across a couch, his armor off and cape making for a blanket, his hammer sat on the table by him. Tony, who was on an opposite couch with Pepper curled into him, had been fascinated by the hammer, along with Steve and Bruce, since it seemed to defy the laws of physics as it wanted.

Bruce had wandered off to a 'real bed for once', and Steve had fallen asleep on the floor near the group, his upper body leaning against the couch that Pepper and Tony were asleep on.

Natasha had opted to slide into a chair near where Tony and Pepper were on not long before they fell asleep.

She could see the haunted look in Tony's eyes, she knew they'd have to deal with that at some point. But for now, he had Pepper, and his toys, and now the Avengers.

Natasha slid out of the chair quietly, needing some water to balance out the vodka Tony had kept giving her earlier. To be fair, she hadn't been fighting that hard to stop him.

As she slipped through the couches and tables, she paused and looked at the mighty hammer resting on the glass. The leather was old, but in good condition on the handle, marked with centuries of battles. The metal of the hammer itself was dense, and shiny, and it was reflecting the city lights softly off of its side.

Not knowing what caused her sudden sense of curiosity, but looking around to make sure everyone was asleep, she reached down and put her hand on the hammer, the leather almost warm in the cool evening air. With a slight heft, she picked up the hammer, held it to her face, which was casting a reflection of her surprised smirk as the hammer seemed to hum in the quiet night air. Shrugging, she softly placed it back down, heading off for the refrigerator.

"Huh."

-The End -

* * *

 **A/N** \- Thanks for coming on this ride with me. I appreciate your interest. I will eventually write a sequel once I find a plot bunny that appeals to me.

 **A/N2** \- Google search Black Widow Marvel What If Thors Hammer. I really had wanted her to lift the damn thing in A:AoU, but story wise would've ruined the later moment. However, I think that by not having her try, they've left that door open for a future moment like this. (And more importantly, wouldn't Tony lose his shit if she could pick it up and he can't?)


End file.
